Did Samson commit suicide?
Question:
The following is taken from a long letter that mostly complains that a response to a question about suicide was not kind enough. The issues raised were already addressed in "I believe your article on suicide is unfair." The author of this complaint did read the answer, but it wasn't good enough for him. I'm not out to please everyone, and the complaints were merely personal opinions. However, he did raise one point that should be addressed:
What you overlooked is that neither Job nor Elijah attempted to kill themselves. Yes, they asked God to remove them from this sorrowful world, but that is as far as it went. They respected life and knew that it is God who should decide when life ends. Job and Elijah are respected because they held on and overcame their trials. You do your position a disservice by conflating the expression of a desire to die with wanting to take your own life and the attempt to do so. The result is a false belief that suicide is acceptable and an indirect encouragement to people to consider sin.
The story of Samson completely negates your entire argument here. You do your position a disservice by forgetting that Samson prayed for God to return his strength to him for the express purpose of committing suicide, and God answered his prayer.
Answer:
"Then Samson called to the LORD and said, "O Lord GOD, please remember me and please strengthen me just this time, O God, that I may at once be avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes." Samson grasped the two middle pillars on which the house rested, and braced himself against them, the one with his right hand and the other with his left. And Samson said, "Let me die with the Philistines!" And he bent with all his might so that the house fell on the lords and all the people who were in it. So the dead whom he killed at his death were more than those whom he killed in his life" (Judges 16:28-30).
Samson asked God for his strength back one more time for the expressed purpose of punishing the Philistines for blinding him. God granted his request. As he was about to bring down the building, he asked God if he might die with the Philistines. Please take note of this: Samson asked God to let him die. Samson understood that the decision was the Lord's. Samson didn't want to continue living, but he left the choice in God's hands.
This is not like Saul, who fell on his sword so that the Philistines would not torture him (I Samuel 31:4), or Judas, who hung himself in his sorrow of betraying Jesus (Matthew 27:3-5). Samson's action led to his death, but the purpose of his action was not to take his own life.
